The Taker
by Atramentous Love
Summary: It is inevitable that in a city teeming with humans, mistakes will happen. Crashes. Collisions. She takes because she has to, absorbs the pain and takes and takes until there is nothing left. She was never meant to be. AU HitsuRuki, ByakuRuki, IchiRuki
1. Prelude

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Bleach, but I spent awhile coming up with this idea. So don't you dare take it without my permission.

**Summary: **It is inevitable that in a city teeming with humans, mistakes will happen. Crashes. Collisions. She takes because she has to, absorbs the pain and takes until there is nothing. AU HitsuRuki, B/R, I/R

**Future Pairings: **Hitsugaya/Rukia (main), minor Byakuya/Rukia, Ichigo/Rukia

**Music: **Imogen Heap's The Walk

**The Taker**

_Prelude to the Madness _

The world is falling apart.

There's fear everywhere, whispers and ghosts of would-be infections, undesirables, the takers of all that is good and right with the world. It's a sudden crash, a seeping of people's desires into one entity on the brink of life and death. Madness, the public calls it. Incurable, the doctors say with the touch of terror in their eyes—winking and glimmering in the pale, yellow lights of solitary confinement. Cars are abandoned as the governments bond together, struggling to deal with something that cannot be dealt with, cannot be brushed aside like a gossamer curtain or a stray cobweb.

It takes a simple human being, a collision, that thin thread of life, and a million dreams to create one. A Taker. Something out of nothing. A rewinding thread of vitality that spins a new life out of a dying breath so that this new creature can be born and live to take and take from the world and its people. They come in different forms, some bright and boisterous, others quiet and thoughtful. But it doesn't matter in the end, because Takers take the best in people, take the happiness and joy and cradle it in their still hearts that do not beat. They are forever trying to fill this emptiness inside them, hoping that one day the joy will start their hearts, make them human again. _For in the end, isn't everyone just striving to be accepted?_

Minimal losses, the governments say. Report any Takers so that they may be quarantined and left to die. Others push for slow, systematic executions. It's survival, some argue. A human without happiness is a shell. The needs of the public outweigh the needs of one inhuman _thing_, politicians state. Xenophobia. Terror. They come together in the cities and twist into murder, a return to the Dark Ages, and no one knows if they'll ever see the light again.

It's a dream, she wants to believe. She's only a small thing of the world, a fragile human made of blood and skin and streams of consciousness. But in a city of teeming thousands, accidents are bound to happen. A stray, leftover car. A reckless driver. A pause for too long, the glare of headlights, and she's on her back. This unnamed girl with blood spiraling down the roads and dimming eyes. Night is falling and no one stops to look at this tragic scene, no one dares to touch her. She could become a Taker, she could quietly fade away, she could do anything and nothing at all.

At twilight, before dawn and after dusk, the dreams come to her. Soft whispers of a lamented love long lost, wishes for a better tomorrow, aspirations from an orphan who dreams of touching the sky and seeing mother again. They take the place of blood in her body, run through her veins and intertwine around her soul.

Her heart stills and turns to ashes.

…a new Taker.

* * *

Rukia is an empty name. It is something to call this thin, waif-like slip of a girl by. She is different, the other orphans know. It isn't that her eyes are a shade of intense, lovely lilac or that her hair is darker than the bleakest of nights. It isn't her moon-white skin or her perpetually pensive silence—as if the words are there, but her spirit is not. It's just her. She drifts in the orphanage, someone without a beginning and without an end. No one remembers her birth or why she came to be at all.

She's only seven when it happens. The dam that breaks, the sudden and decisive strike.

"Why are you sad?" It's a simple question with child-like innocence _(and isn't she just a child after all?)_.

He smiles weakly and pats her head gently. His name is Kaien and he'll change her world just as she will surely change him forever, permanently, without a mark to announce her presence. "My wife went to the stars." He answers at last, gazing at the celestial heavens and wondering if there's a God or a deity. He wonders if she understands, somewhere in her open face and small, small hands. Maybe she does.

She turns her luminous eyes to the brightest star. It's an instinctive move as she places her child fingers above his heart, as if it's natural in a society bound by rules and laws. He doesn't pull away, knowing without really knowing just who _(what)_ she is.

She breathes in his pain as he exhales, pulls it over her like a blanket and into her like it's a part of her that she cannot lose. She takes it from his heart and pulls away only when there is nothing left to remind him of that chasm of sadness and grief. He stares, astonished, watches as the world is slowly turning back into something bearable—livable.

She doesn't say anything. He can't find the words.

At seven, Rukia realizes who she is and why she'll never feel her heart beat.

* * *

Thirteen finds her standing on a roof, arms flung outward like she wants to fly and fall until she's just a beautiful mess on the sidewalk before her. A heap of tragic memories and fateful touches. Her soul is a too-filled basin, overflowing with pain that she's taken into herself. But she can take more than emotional pain now. She can take lives. Hearts. Everything and anything to ease a person's suffering. She can erase the past, reinvent the future. But she will never be able to take enough.

"Don't fall." She looks up at the quiet voice and sees a man with violently red hair and tattoos that cross his skin like scars. She doesn't say anything, just smiles vaguely and steps off the roof.

He grabs her as she falls, their hands clasped as she's weighed down by gravity, hanging on the edge of a chasm. She doesn't know him. He doesn't know her. But it doesn't matter because she won't die. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. He pulls her up, barely exerting any effort because she is lighter than air—made of dreams and sadness. He thinks that she'll disappear if he lets go, even if it's only for a second.

He thinks he's useless. She knows. She can feel his desire to be someone, to do something. It's why she stepped off that roof, so that he can lose that fear of being worthless. She presses a hand to his heart and adds a little more to her overflowing basin. He watches her, mesmerized by her clear, tranquil violet eyes.

A Taker.

"Who are you?" He asks as she takes his shame and his despair into herself, drawing it like the ancients drew water from a bottomless well.

She smiles, withdraws her hand and paints the sky a lovely shade of lavender for him. "Rukia."

He wants to ask why she won't take his happiness like all the other Takers or why she's chosen to help him of all people. But by the time the words form, she's walked away. He'll understand later that he never really saved her on that day by the roof, but that she saved him—with a vague smile and a hand over his heart.

* * *

At seventeen, she's lost some of that child within her. It's been eaten away from too many dark feelings, too much sadness permeating her little corner of the world. She's slender as ever, but her eyes are indigo now and her smiles are less vague and more and more substantial—coated with foreign feelings.

It's at seventeen that they begin to hunt for her.

Too many deaths, the government explains. She may not be a true Taker, but she's still a threat to society. They issue an announcement, but no one will tell them what she looks like, who she is. She wanders through the streets, appearing calm and quiet, never failing to garner intense looks of interest. Today, there's a soul calling to her from the hospital, so she walks towards it. Feeling for the throb of life and separating one life strand from another until she can see a picture of the patient—white hair and dying from tuberculosis. Physical pain rather than mental and she cannot cure his illness. She cannot heal. It's the last stage and when she pushes the room to his door open, she resolves in her heart do what must be done.

He has a kindly face, this Ukitake. But it is worn from too many years spent fighting a losing war against an invasion of his body. He doesn't ask why she's here, just extends a thin arm to the chair by his side reserved for visitors.

"Candy?" He offers, holds back the cough threatening to spill past his lips.

She wants to say no, but she doesn't. Pity, perhaps. Atonement, a part of her whispers. She reaches for a tiny wrapped candy piece, wrapped in colorful foil and pockets it quietly. "Thank you." Her voice is hazy, blurred over as if she is speaking in a perpetually smoke-covered room.

"I'm a dying man."

She nods, glances at the heart monitor with the steady green line and the eternal beeping. He doesn't look surprised that she knows. Age has brought him wisdom and illness has given him perception. He understands and a part of him wants to apologize for placing his insignificant life on her shoulders.

She stops him with a hand before he can speak. From afar, she draws his life's string into her. She doesn't want to feel his heart fading underneath her touch, can't bear it, so she does it from the chair—worn in from too many well-wishing visitors and bearing the ghosts of people past. The same hopeful wish of getting better. The get-well cards with hastily scribbled messages in different colored crayons.

"You were loved." She comments softly, dimming the presence of his aura gradually. He's slipping away, but he can hear her and her words comfort him, let him exhale that final breath of life with ease. He is no longer holding onto something. He is letting go and she is helping him.

The monitor flatlines.

* * *

She is empty at nineteen.

Too many nights spent avoiding the public areas, running from those who wish to quarantine her, stop her from living as she should. There is the government, who has a price on her head _(a general sentence that goes something like this: Wanted, a Taker who can draw people's lives away. Caution, she or he is known to capture sadness and may use it as an advantage. $20,000 for live capture)_. There are the nondescript bounty hunters, who want the money more than they want the glory. There are the extremist groups, who see that their world is being taken over and so retaliate with hysteria. They are the ones who want to kill her.

And there is herself.

Perhaps that is the most dangerous obstacle of all.

The basin inside her soul by now is still, dry where it once teemed with the cool liquid of sadness. There are times when she cannot overcome the fatigue or her body does not work as it should. Moments of paralysis. Like she is standing but her feet are rooted to the spot, the life lines of the world suspended in the palms of her hands like threads of silk. She cannot survive without their despair.

Winter is sinking into the marrow of her bones and her skin is slowly blending in with the gray, lackluster surroundings. Completing the cycle—ashes to ashes.

Her eyes close.

A few feet away from her, a white-haired youth with turquoise eyes trips over a stray rock and curses.

They will meet and this is where the story begins.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I return from a hiatus! Fantastic, isn't it? Don't worry, I haven't abandoned my other stories. From here on out, I'll be rapidly writing for Punishment so I can finish it and have it over with. Once I've completed Punishment, my priority will be completing Tension and the Spark as well as Eros and Psyche. I may or may not dabble in a humorous fic, but that's debatable. For those of you who are curious about my sudden drop off the face of the earth, blame it on junior year. Taking 5 APs was probably the worst decision I've ever made in my life. Enough said.

As always, read and review! It'll make me especially happy to know that people haven't forgotten about me. :O


	2. Infinity

**The Taker**

_fall to infinity_

Hitsugaya is not open-minded nor is he one of those racist bigots roaming around the cities in a return worthy of the Dark Ages. He's just a little jaded—a little hurt on the inside, becoming undone seam by seam. But that's another story for another time and right now, the spiritual wounds have yet to heal. He can see them in his mind's eye, raw and burning, scratched and red with grief and anger.

He wishes he weren't so introspective.

He picks himself up off the floor slowly, ignoring the rock and cursing at his own carelessness. The city streets are unsafe. He should know better than to step outside, alone, with nothing but his thoughts to carry him forward bit by bit. He sighs and brushes the hair from his eyes, hands shoved in his pockets, head angled towards the sky. It's okay, he tells himself then and there. It's alright. Tomorrow will be another day and maybe the wounds will be a little less painful to carry with him. Maybe.

He turns and stops.

There's a girl lying by the side of the street, limp and unmoving with eyes the color of lilac. She reminds him of an abandoned doll, all bruises and pale skin, but lovely just the same. He takes a step closer even though warnings are going off in his head, cynical comments surfacing: _she's dead. You can't bring back the dead, better leave her there. Stop caring, Hitsugaya. Remembered the last time you cared? It's better to stop. Stop. Leave. Let her lie there. Leave her be. _

But he doesn't.

He crouches by her side and reaches out a tentative hand, placing it on her neck where he knows there should be a heartbeat. There isn't one. _Dead_. There's a sudden welling of extreme sadness when he stands up again, looking at her—discarded and abandoned. She's beautiful. There's a strange twist to his heart as he takes a step away, something indescribably _heartrending_.

He hisses as a sweep of coldness takes a hold of his lungs, lodging there and he feels so, so _cold_. Something is flowing out of him, his burdens and his shame, the wounds of his imagination are sealing and mending impossibly fast. _Stop. _He pleads inwardly, grasping desperately at the last threads of his sadness and grief. _Give my feelings back to me. _

"Why?" The voice is slow and hazy, tinged with resignation. He lifts his eyes and finds that girl standing now, leaning on a lamppost for support, her hands held up in front of her—palms open and facing the sky. The coldness is still within him, but it's suspended, as if unsure of what to do with itself now.

"I need to heal. By myself. It's a part of who I am." He answers shakily, feet rooted to the spot. So this is who the government is looking for. The Grief Taker, the odd one out, the strange person in an already strange world. He tries to draw in a breath and chokes on the ice that feels like it's encroaching on his heart.

"I see." She answers and lets her fingers curl inwards, hands coming to rest by her side. The chill evaporates and his sadness slams back in full force into his body. The wounds, healed so unnaturally before, rip apart again and he can hardly stand from the onslaught. "I'm sorry."

"Please. Go away." His fingers are digging into the spot above his chest, right where the heart is. "I can't..." _see you, look at you, accept you. _He doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to.

She smiles, forlornly, the lights glimmering in her eyes. "I understand." But behind her words is a promise:

_Because I could not heal you, I will guard you. _

_

* * *

  
_

His sadness has revitalized her body, even though only the faint impressions remain, she believes in the dim dream and promises that it brings her. She lifts her eyes to his gaze one last time and turns, walking away in steady strides. Teal eyes, a shock of white hair, with a tragedy too heavy to carry alone but too private to share. He has a story with him. She feels an urgent need to go back, but she doesn't. She keeps her gaze ahead of her and walks and walks.

The path before her is one made from broken dreams.

* * *

Two weeks later, she meets someone like her, but so very different.

It's by accident. She stumbles into a musty shop with ancient wares, just to see an elegant man drawing the thin, glowing strands of happiness from the shopkeeper into his heart. There aren't many to begin with, for the shopkeeper has lived a life of isolation and failed career paths, forever living an unfulfilled life. These meager strands quiver in the air as she steps closer into the shop and she knows _(beyond a doubt)_ that when the last thread fades, this nameless shopkeeper will be but an empty imitation of what he once was.

She hangs onto that last thread for the poor human, fingernails digging into her palm with effort. She hasn't recovered. It's far too soon for her to even try going against another older, more powerful Taker. But she watches with satisfaction as a thin sheen of ice encases the final strand of happiness.

"What do you think you are doing?" The voice is apathetic, devoid of basic emotion.

She studies the other Taker's blank, gray eyes and sweeps into a low bow. "You cannot kill him. He has not lived a happy life and to take his last hopes would be too cruel." Her eyes are closed, but her concentration is unbroken, and the ice makes beautiful patterns in the air.

"You are weak." He states calmly, without resistance.

"Yes." She acknowledges, rising gracefully to a standing position.

The ice in the air catches his attention and he pauses, hesitant. "You are the different one. The Grief Taker, so the humans have taken to calling you. You are the one who survives off of their grief rather than the warm spirit of this happiness." He says this almost to himself and with a sudden motion breaks his connection to the shopkeeper. The thread disappears back from whence it came, protected within its cocoon of ice. "So be it. I have much to ask you."

She smiles distantly. "If you want to."

He takes her hand and pulls her outside, underneath the streetlights and the dark, dark sky with the moon hanging so low tonight. "My apologies, I seem to have neglected introducing myself." He turns to look at her, letting go of her fragile wrist almost reluctantly. His features are softened by the glow of the moonlight and she thinks that he's handsome in a way that no one will ever be able to imitate.

"Byakuya."

"Rukia." She replies after a silence.

"Why do you take their grief and pain?" He asks finally, and this conversation is awkward and unfitting and it's _wrong_ for all the reasons she can't say. She's never had anyone question her actions before. She doesn't have a right answer, doesn't have an explanation.

"I don't know." She answers truthfully. "But if I don't, my body shuts down. I can't move. Why do you take their happiness, their joy?" She doesn't mean to sound accusing, but she does anyways. She can't help it.

He has an answer ready. She can tell he's had an answer ready for a long, long time. "Because it makes me feel alive, for just a moment. And then it fades and I'm left like I am now." He doesn't mention that he has a reason for talking to her when he's never talked to another Taker before. He doesn't mention that he _needs_ her ability to justify his actions to himself. He doesn't tell her that he hates who he is, someone who can kill his loved one, someone who survives like a parasite from day to day.

There are some things that he just can't share.

"Why me?" She asks, and it can mean many things: _why did you have to talk to me, why am I the odd-one out, why are you standing here looking at me like I'll be able to save you when I can't—I won't? _She doesn't elaborate further on the meaning and Byakuya's lost, standing there and feeling like the world is caving down on his shoulders.

"Because I can't hurt you." He replies honestly and reaches for her hand. She gives it to him mechanically, turning questions inside and out and inside again within her head.

"What do you want from me?" She asks, his hand radiating warmth against her icy cold fingers. This is the shopkeeper's happiness running through his veins, mimicking the flow of blood, the beat of a heart. She'll never have that. For her, there is only the cool, liquid rush to propel her forward. She will never be warm. She will never give warmth away. Not as a human and not as a Taker. This is what it means to be different. It's a curse.

"Live with me. They won't be able to find you and you'll never need to run again." It's obvious who _they_ really is, the government, the bounty hunters, the overly zealous maniacs who think this is the great apocalypse. "You have nothing to lose from coming with me." He wants to say that he can protect her. She's weak right now, so pale and thin that he thinks she might disappear with the slightest touch of the wind. She looks like someone else and he so desperately wants to believe that she won't fade, that he won't end up killing her—taking the life from her slowly but surely.

She looks at him, violet eyes luminous and large with a thousand forgotten hopes and dreams. All she's ever wanted in life is right in front of her: understanding, companionship, a place to call home.

She intertwines their fingers together and smiles sweetly.

_(This is her answer)_

_

* * *

  
_

Byakuya's home is nothing more and nothing less than a mansion. With her first glance, Rukia can feel the awe overtake every single emotion. It's a gorgeous white mansion, complete with a small koi pond and dozens of cherry blossoms trees that sway with every gentle breeze.

"Who…who are you?" She asks, stepping forward, letting go of his hand to gaze upwards at the brilliant display before her.

His smile is a little sad when he replies, but her back is turned towards him and so she doesn't see. "In the real world, I am an advisor to people from all walks of life. As a Taker, I have been one for a long time." He looks down at his flawless, ageless skin and smiles that same peculiar smile again. "I'm not quite what I'm supposed to be either."

She doesn't understand. He doesn't expect her to.

"I am an unwilling Taker. Where I walk, their joy flows into me. I don't want to take it, I try so hard to survive on the bare minimum, but it can't be helped. The longer the exposure time, the more of their happiness I take until after a very long time…I will have taken every last thread from them." She can sense the surface of a deep guilt within him and it's a little tragic, a little maddening.

"You live in isolation now." She comments, gazing back up at the mansion and thinking of it as a self-imposed prison now. A beautiful gilded cage for him to retreat behind.

"Yes. I never do my business in person now." He hesitates, but throws caution to the wind. "It's been…too quiet for me." _Disturbing_, he wants to say. _I can't sleep anymore without seeing her face_, he wants to say that too. But that's for later. He doesn't trust her yet.

The weight of his sadness is crushing, as if with his sudden memories, he can no longer bear to keep it all at bay. She can hardly breathe past the suffocating mixture and it's pure instinct when she reaches out a hand to hold in front of her, eyes glowing a rich shade of amethyst. _Take it away_. This feeling inside her says urgently. _Take it all_.

The recoil is violent and soul-searing.

Something is on fire inside of her. It's eating at her skin, lapping away at her bones like a ravenous dog—just gnawing and gnawing. It's insanity of the highest degree and there's something crawling in her head, screaming and screaming. It's eating her from the inside out, greedily ripping her skin off and _make it stop_.

She screams, vocal chords shredding.

He can't help her.

* * *

"Have you heard?" Gin drawls, stirring the coffee and making a face at the bitterness. "There's a new Taker out there, a girl from what I can catch on the streets. But get this, she ain't quite like you and I. She takes _sadness_, fancy that! I wonder if she's pretty."

"Hm," Aizen replies noncommittally, taking a deep drink from his cup _(black coffee, hold the sugar and the cream)_. "I wonder if she's powerful. People these days have so much more grief than they do happiness…" He trails off and stares out the window aimlessly. It's raining today. "See if you can find her, Gin. While you're doing that, I'll be looking into this other Taker I've had in mind for quite some time."

"Eh?" Gin asks, his interest piqued. "You mean the guy? The one who people think is actually human? What was his name again?" He frowns momentarily, snapping his fingers impatiently as the name refuses to come. "Aw shoot, I think I forgot his name."

"Byakuya," Aizen supplies helpfully.

"Right! That one." Gin's smile is incredibly wide and disturbing. "You think he'd want to come with us? He doesn't seem like he hates them people out there."

"It doesn't matter. I doubt he'd be able to match up to me and if he refuses, well, the world will just have one less Taker to worry about—wouldn't that be nice?" He smiles serenely behind his glasses, refilling his cup of coffee and sitting back in his chair. "After all, I've got a fountain of happiness with me." A pause. "Speaking of which, we ought to replenish ourselves. It's terribly dank outside and I find that this sort of weather depresses my spirits."

Gin smothers a laugh behind his sleeve. "Should I go get her then?"

"Please do."

It doesn't take long for Gin to return with a petite girl clinging onto his arm. Her eyes are masked with delusion and her skin is a sickly color. But she smiles when she sees Aizen, lips curving up into a soft expression reserved only for him. "Aizen." She murmurs, happiness forcing its way past her heart, up her throat, to wrap around her words. "I was so worried about you." Relief. Strands from her loose bun fall to outline her face. Gin's snicker goes unnoticed.

"Hinamori." Aizen acknowledges, adopting a kind and loving look. "I'm terribly sorry for worrying you so, but I had matters to attend. I'll be leaving in another week, but until then, I promise I will not leave your side. But I am rather tired from my trip…" He trails off artfully and watches with mild satisfaction as the threads in her heart grow numerous.

"Please." Hinamori whispers. "Please, take it."

He dips his head in acceptance and feigned modesty _(she will never know that she is but a tool)_ and breathes in her joy, bright and uplifting like the sun's warm summer rays. Delusion is the mother of feigned happiness and feigned happiness is inexhaustible. She is his ultimate success. She is the reason behind his immortality.

In the background, Gin's laughter mingles with the sound of rain.

* * *

_(They are all connected, the deluded one, the one made of snow, the guilt-ridden, the guilty, the one who was never meant to be, the controller. And together, they will fall.) _

_

* * *

  
_

**Author's Notes: **Sorry for the long wait! Ichigo will make an appearance next chapter and more of Byakuya's back-story will be revealed. Histugaya and Rukia will meet up once more and in the background, Aizen will lurk. Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! It's really amazing. You all really provide the encouragement that I need.

For all those who want to read Punishment's last chapter, I'm working on it! I really am. It's just proving to be a really, really _long_ chapter. I swear to god I'll update it before this month is through. Ugh.


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